I can't believe this one went so long unanswered.
First as to viewing manuscripts in poets handwriting. There is in fact quite a bit of work published with reproduction of holographic manuscripts. Though with poets, esecially, it is hard to tell what the actual manuscript is. For instance, you can find on line reproductions of the Walt Whitmans first edition of Leaves of Grass, and for all intents and purposes this is a manuscript, for several reasons. First, Whitman's handwriting is worse than my own, if the reproduction of his original MS is any example, but, Whitman, like Sam Clemens was a printer's devil, and edited his poetry from galley proofs and by hand on the table. Whole sections of his poetry was set by himself. If you wish, it is possible to find quite a bit of manuscript reproduced on line, and there are very pricy special editions. I reccomend you find the William Blake Songs of Innocence [ http://www.blakearchive.org/exist/blake/archive/work.xq?workid=songsie ]
I write in pen myself or straight into the keyboard. And there is no such thing as a final version of anything I write. When I write a poem in pen I have to always make a faircopy, because the original is so marked up by my editing. And I am glad I write in pen because I can usualy find the original if I don't like the revision. I find in making a fair copy, I edit without mercy so the faircopy is now the manuscript version, and then when I transcribe the poem into the computer, it can sometimes be a whole third version. And on printing it out, I find that I mark up that printed version so much, that I need to create still a fourth version in inserting the edits I have made on the printout. So I don't know what version of akl that you would call the manuscript. And I have sometimes made a faircopy of the printout if I wish to give the poem to someone.
